50 brilliant book publisher logos

The world of book publisher logos caught our attention a few months ago with the celebrated re-design of Harvard University Press’s logo, which went from a stodgy seal to a minimal grid built to last on paper and digital pages alike.

Our next discovery was another Ivy League overhaul, Yale University Press, which ditched its distinctive but admittedly dated-looking Paul Rand logo for a more timelessly conservative word mark.

It only gets better from there; the publishing industry sports some of the loveliest logos around. Catering to an educated crowd while making do with severe space limitations (the logos all have to look good on the spine of a thin book), these logos represent a perfect meeting ground between imagination and restraint — what many would call the crux of good design. Here are 50 exemplars: dive in.